


She’ll Look After You

by Es_Aitch



Series: Twelfth Doctor One Shots Series 10 [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s10e03 Thin Ice, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-27 00:46:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10798215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Es_Aitch/pseuds/Es_Aitch
Summary: There were so many things for fodder in this episode.  So there will be at least two stories surrounding it.  This is the first.  Bill sees her bedroom on the TARDIS for the first time.  (Might be AU’d later.)  That said, Spoilers for “Thin Ice”.





	She’ll Look After You

After their encounter with The Cheat on the Warf, Bill and the Doctor hid all of the scuba gear and then returned to the TARDIS. The Doctor wanted a shower and he was pretty sure Bill needed a nap. After all, it had been fairly late when he had returned for her on Earth and they had already been here a full day.

When they entered the TARDIS, Bill started to head off. The Doctor stopped her. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To the wardrobe, to change.”

The Doctor smirked. “You won’t have to do that.”

Bill pulled a face. “Well, I’m not changing out here, if that’s what you mean.”

The Doctor’s smirk morphed into a smile. “It’s not. Follow me.”

He led her down a different corridor and showed her a room with a door that looked oddly like her bedroom door in the flat. “Wait, she can just send me to my house like this?”

The Doctor shook his head. “Not your house. But it is _your_ space. Go on.”

Bill opened the door to find a bedroom that was at once very different from her own and yet, very cosy by her standards. She turned back to the Doctor. “Seriously?”

He shrugged. “The TARDIS provides for her passengers. Besides, it’s been a long day and it was already late when we left. You’ve basically gone two days without sleep. You need a place to sleep, so the TARDIS has given you one.”

“Moira was wrong. Didn’t need to worry about you, the TARDIS, however…” She turned to him and smiled. “Thank you. For everything.”

The Doctor shook his head. “Don’t thank me. This is all the TARDIS.”

Bill looked puzzled. “Right. How do I thank her, then?”

The Doctor smiled and rested his hand against the wall. “She’s telepathic. She knows simply because you’re within her walls. But if you want to, you could touch her and let her know.”

Bill raised an eyebrow at the Doctor, but then followed his lead and rested her hand on the wall. She could feel it thrum and pulled away, startled. “Oh my God!”

The Doctor’s smile became a grin. “Did it warm, or just vibrate?”

Bill swallowed hard. “Vibrate.”

The Doctor nodded. “Do it again, give it a moment.”

This time, Bill was ready for the vibration and after a moment, she could feel the wall beneath her hand warm. Then she felt many feelings at once: excitement, joy, and contentment. Bill realised these weren’t her feelings, but someone else’s. Not really the Doctor’s either. She didn’t think he felt this positive about anything. Then she understood. “You call her ‘her’ because she’s alive.”

The Doctor nodded. “That’s the general idea.”

“When you said she’d watch after me… that I’d always be safe here…”

The Doctor grinned and nodded again.

“That’s incredible! I just…. Your ship is alive and she seems to like me! I think I might be more than low-key in love with her.”

The Doctor fondly stroked the wall and he seemed to answer the ship more than Bill. “Me too.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to sleep now.”

That pulled the Doctor back to the moment. “The TARDIS will help you, if you let her. Tomorrow, we’ll have breakfast in a café before heading to the Dredges. If you need anything, let the TARDIS know, if she can’t help you, she’ll let me know.”

“Magical alien powers?”

“Nothing magic about it. Like I said, she’s telepathic.”

Bill hummed at him but then yawned deeply. The Doctor smiled. “Right.” He entered the bedroom for a moment to point things out. “There’s an en suite through there, a wardrobe here, and well, like I said, the TARDIS will take care of you.”

He then backed out of the bedroom, but paused at the door. “Good night, Bill, sleep well.”

Bill nodded. “You too.”

After the Doctor left, Bill went to the bathroom and saw that the TARDIS had already provided soaps, salts, and other things to add to her bath water and the bath itself was deeper than what she had in the flat. It would be perfect, because she realised all her muscles and joints were suddenly very sore.

When she felt relaxed and clean enough, she got out of the bath and wrapped herself in the softest towel she thought she had ever felt. “A girl could get used to this!”

She then found pyjamas and after dressing, she climbed into bed. Whatever she had said to the Doctor about not being able to sleep – she had been very wrong, because she fell into a deep and calming sleep moments after her head hit the pillow.

Bill woke slowly what could have been hours or days later. She looked around her and for a moment thought that everything could have been a dream. But when she realised she wasn’t in the flat, she knew it wasn’t a dream. Travelling with the Doctor, the living ship that gave her whatever she needed, all of it had been real. She dressed quickly and made her way to the console room.

The Doctor was already waiting for her. “So, ready to go figure out what’s actually going on here?”

Bill grinned. “As ready as I’ll ever be, but I thought we’d have breakfast first?”

“Of course. But I also said we’d have it at a café. I know this delightful one. Best place in London this year.”

Bill smiled. “Why does that not surprise me?”

The Doctor gestured to the doors and they both exited back into London 1814.


End file.
